Abstract

We report the direct voltage modulated operation of a vertical cavitytransistor laser via intra-cavity coherent signal photon-assisted tunneling. The reversed-bias base/collector junction of the transistor laser provides high input impedance for effective high speed direct voltage modulation. The optical L-VCEcharacteristics show that the emission intensity saturates and then decreases in laser intensity to half amplitude and broadens when VCE is switched from 3 to 6 V owing to intra-cavity photon-assisted tunneling at the base/collector junction. Correspondingly, the collector IC-VCEcharacteristics exhibit increased current at higher VCE.

Received 04 June 2012Accepted 18 June 2012Published online 20 August 2012

Acknowledgments:

N. Holonyak, Jr. is grateful for the support of the John Bardeen Chair (Sony) of Electrical and Computer Engineering and Physics, and M. Feng for the support of the Nick Holonyak, Jr. Chair of Electrical and Computer Engineering. The authors would like to thank Dr. Michael Gerhold (Army Research Office) and acknowledge the support of Army Research Office (Grant No. W911NF-08-1-0469). The authors wish to thank Dr. Gabriel Walter (Quantum Electro Optical System) for providing VCTL crystals.